How to Fix: “tsMuxeR.exe has a return code of -3!”

By | July 3, 2012

This fix applies to PS3MediaServer, or the recently branched Universal Media Player.

You might have run into this problem where if you are playing .H264 MKV files, it will exit before the video has finished. Another similar problem is that the movie will pause, then freeze, then exit.

If you look at the debug.log, you will notice that tsMuxeR is to blame. This renderer hasn’t been updated in ages, and we can skip it all together.

Step 1: Disable tsMuxeR –  Open up PS3MediaPlayer or Universal Media Player, go to the “Transcoding Settings” tab, highlight tsMuxeR, then click on the Plug icon at the bottom of the list of items. This will change the green arrow to the red x.

Step 2: Disable remuxing in MEncoder – Select MEncoder from the list, and uncheck “Remux videos with tsMuxeR when possible instead of transcoding”

Now, all your videos should work fine, the slight disadvantage being that MEncoder will take up more CPU resources than simply remuxing. What is the cause of this problem? Something about “header stripping” in MKV files and tsMuxeR not getting along. If you care to know more, google “header stripping tsMuxeR”.

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